Stay Creative on Substack #5
Using Notes and Chat to galvanise the second chapter of the year for joyful growth on Substack!
Hi, If you’re new here I’m Claire. I’m an Engagement Consultant and Mentor and I started my journey with Substack in April 2022. I’ve been teaching the platform for well over a year to thousands of people and hundreds of members. My focus? Joyful, sustainable growth. Mindset work and of course creativity. This month I’m celebrating 300 people joining the
membership, 20k podcast downloads and over 5000 readers.Thank YOU for making this work a JOY!
It’s wonderful to be back with this series for free subscribers. If you’re new here to Sparkle on Substack WELCOME.
I can’t believe I used to write these updates every week… ✨ I guess that’s part of evolving and moving with your readers… that’s the practise of showing up. Now all the good stuff is poured into my member calls but there’s something about these long form celebrations I didn’t want to let go of so they are once a season now.
In this bumper issue of ‘Stay Creative on Substack’, there are some shout outs, some creative dazzlers and some thoughts to ponder as we head into a slower phase of summer here in the Northern Hemisphere.
I’m hoping all my Southern Hemisphere pals are still online as it’s already started to feel quiet here and I have a tonne to share with you?! Give me a wave on this ‘Where in the world are you?’ post over here?
☀️
Stay Creative on Substack
QUESTION - Is your Substack a magazine, a newsletter, a blog, a community, a podcast, a mixed media extravaganza, a set of provocations, a place for your art? Is it a membership, a place with work, courses, downloads behind the paywall? Do you WANT to offer video?
It can BE what you want it to be… you always have that option. You can always pivot, you can always shift things. You simply take your readers with you.
✨
I attending a best seller video training from
at Substack last week and it was great to be in the zoom room with other creative thinkers. The new video editor is a great option for us to preview who we are to our free subscribers. You’ll see I used it here…Randa at Substack also reminded us about “leveraging” our audience.
For example, you can filter your subscribers in lots of different ways including ‘best seller’ status. You can then send an email (not post it here) if you fancy. Proceed with caution if you are emailing the folks with ⭐️5stars because having been on the receiving end of those emails, I can tell you the data is slightly misleading. 1
This is a great feature and means you can send a personal message, reminder, quick note and not post it to your ‘stack.
It was an interesting invitation for me… I’m not sure if I’ll do it or if I did what I’d say…perhaps I’ll send the best sellers a copy of my NEW book ‘How to Build a World Class Substack’ co-authored with
! Perhaps that’s a nice gift for those people and they might tell their audiences about it! Or perhaps I’ll run a competition to win one - watch this space… 📖 ✨✨ Top Tip for community building 🌱
I’m sure you are all COMPLETELY overwhelmed with Susbtack tips these days??!
BUT I will share one with you.
If you co-author a thread or a post with others, they get the notifications too and if feels like a wonderful meeting of colleagues. A kinship, a slower more intimate space to have chats rather than ‘respond to comments’ and move on. It’s my new fave. Like this one…
✨
Small is beautiful…
You know one of my colleagues I met through Substack and I often have the chat about aligned subscribers, aligned collaborations and finding your people.
We don’t always get it right but here’s where I’m at;
You think you want MORE? You actually don’t, you want more of the right people. That’s where the joy truly lives… more is overwhelming, more is hard for our brains, more gives us more fight, flight, freeze. More takes us away from the garden and our families and pushes into hours MORE blue light.
On that note, HUGE congrats to the
team on a wonderful launch which saw so many folks flood and gather to the hottest most supportive Substack in town;I asked
the founder of Small Stack for his thoughts;“SmallStack was started on a whim—an idea to platform smaller voices here on Substack. What I thought was a wave turned out to be a tsunami of folks bringing their kindness, curiosity, and generosity into every post and comment. This community has come forward with ideas, gratitude, knowledge sharing, and tremendous patience as we grow together. It truly fills my cup!”
💝
Substack Notes worth thinking on…
How are you finding Notes?
As an introvert, I LOVE notes. I love the sophistication of conversation. I love a good scroll but I’m cautious about when I do that.
I wrote this note in response to an article by the wonderful Rachael at
and this one
If you are leaning into what Notes can be for you, lean in, try new things, chat with your colleagues? Use it to promote SOMEONE else’s work?
MORE here;
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A FABULOUS round up of Newsletters that invite us to lean into to the stay creative message here on Substack…
wrote a GENEROUS piece on all the questions we have about building a creative newsletter… You might also like their interview with Substack. I’ve read and quoted this SO many times;
wrote for on holding onto your golden thread on Substack on her results on that note that went viral - shares on how she dealt with plateauing on Substack - shares her perspective on how to stay sane here - on HOW she launched her paid newsletter…Substack’s update on Substack Notes and how it’s supporting us to grow
Updates from writers about their growth on Substack from
…💬 Top Tips 🌱 with Substack CHAT
Creative ways with ‘chat’. I’m going to be bold and say this.
I THINK chat only “works” if you have a “bigger” engaged community. By this I mean gets you the results you want to see…. otherwise it feels a little like tumbleweed and it’s just hard (not impossible) to get anything started.
This is why I invite you to deepen connection with one person; just one… not look for mass participation… a connection with one person is a special thing. I sought out colleagues who were as passionate about Substack as me and I’ve made friends with them. What is YOUR special interest - what do you most like to write/ talk about here?
I have invited my 2500 email readers over at
to download the Substack app for over a year now (the button is in the header) and my chat there is still SUPER quiet.Our readers don’t always fully understand the different between chat and notes. If they read in email, chat is an extra step for them…
Chat is like your ‘what’s app group’ with your subscribers. It’s intimate, people feel safe there; it’s worth using IF you have a purposeful way with it…
The bonus of chatting on chat is that you can share screen shots and photos which is why I use it for my Ask me Anything about Substack chats on Mondays and my Notes engagement chat threads twice a month.
Best ways I’ve seen chat used recently;
- at The Gardening Mind - so many lovely photos of REAL gardens - such a delight -
- invites her community start chats; we’ve chatted about everything from travel recommends to swimming costumes to paying VAT on Substack subscription income.
- is inviting us into a month of self care… beautiful invites here;
AND I’ve launched a NEW community building project you’re all invited to participate in over in CHAT which I am BEYOND excited about… more on that here and your opportunity to win a secret book;
📖
Ok that’s all for this bumper issue.
I hope you found something that can help you lean into ‘Staying Creative on Substack’.
Push your own creative boundaries, see what lives underneath the years of playing by the rules. It will be fun I promise! Let me know what you’re going to try in the comments?
Claire
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PS - Don’t forget to follow my NEW book - How to Build a World Class Substack on Kickstarter for updates from my co-author and I. Be the first to get your hands on a copy! We launch in TWO WEEKS!!!
From what I can tell if you sign up to a Substack and read every email that comes even if that’s two or three you get 5stars as a reader. At this point you are really just getting to know the writer so I don’t think writing to those people to upsell is THE best method necessarily. Obviously you can do it and people might just scroll past. I have had many many conversations about paywalls, paid for content and how we manage money here. Head here for more.
Yay! Thank you for including me 🥰 these type of highlight posts are brilliant..
So many great ideas and so much inspiration! I’m new on the platform and here because I saw it as a different way to share stories I’ve come across over the course of my life. As a writer, I love the freedom to go beyond the story with bonus content, something I’ve always struggled with. I’m slowly finding my way, often with the help of folks like you - so thanks a bunch!